It's an interesting idea alright, and yes at least if someone is willing enough to invest some of their steem into the person they should at least be real!
I wonder could it ever be made to sell a steem account? Say if you needed money fast and couldn't wait for the power down to complete, you could sell your account with all your steempower in it to someone obviously for a lower price then it's worth!
Oh and now I'm suddenly getting thoughts of all the account names that sometime in the future could well be worth a hell of a lot!
Yes, there's been a number of name-squatters who've accumulated names for their potential future value. At least this method forces them to pay for the privilege. It is possible to sell an account now, it's been done a few times, although it's not totally trivial to do.
The potential future value of some names could be very lucrative.
Amazingly @rte was not taken, until I took it.
Lucky!!!! That's the retirement fund sorted!